March 02, 2014

Mainstream Educators and Anti-Semitism

This is both shocking and not-so-surprising. Shocking that smart, educated people can write things like this; not-so-surprising because I have seen so much on university campuses that is consistent with these results [via MA].

Prof. Monika Schwarz-Friesel of the Technical University of Berlin ... [studied] 10 years’ worth of hate mail–14,000 letters, emails, and faxes in all–sent to the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Israeli embassy in Berlin. In an interview published in Haaretz yesterday, she said she fully expected to discover that most of it came from right-wing extremists. But in fact, right-wing extremists accounted for a mere 3 percent, while over 60 percent came from educated members of “the social mainstream – professors, Ph.Ds, lawyers, priests, university and high-school students,” she said. Nor were there any significant differences between right-wing extremists’ letters and those of the educated mainstream, Schwarz-Friesel said: “The difference is only in the style and the rhetoric, but the ideas are the same.”

To be clear, these letters weren’t just criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians; we’re talking about classic anti-Semitism–as evident from the samples Haaretz cited:

“It is possible that the murder of innocent children suits your long tradition?” one letter said.

“For the last 2,000 years, you’ve been stealing land and committing genocide,” said another.

“You Israelis … shoot cluster bombs over populated areas and accuse people who criticize such actions of anti-Semitism. That’s typical of the Jews!”

I don't always agree with Israeli policy, and I definitely have questions about the advisability of continued expansion of west-bank settlements. But to write things like those quoted above, or to blame Israel for "apartheid" when it is a far more open and democratic society than its Arab neighbours is incomprehensible.

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Mainstream Educators and Anti-Semitism

This is both shocking and not-so-surprising. Shocking that smart, educated people can write things like this; not-so-surprising because I have seen so much on university campuses that is consistent with these results [via MA].

Prof. Monika Schwarz-Friesel of the Technical University of Berlin ... [studied] 10 years’ worth of hate mail–14,000 letters, emails, and faxes in all–sent to the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Israeli embassy in Berlin. In an interview published in Haaretz yesterday, she said she fully expected to discover that most of it came from right-wing extremists. But in fact, right-wing extremists accounted for a mere 3 percent, while over 60 percent came from educated members of “the social mainstream – professors, Ph.Ds, lawyers, priests, university and high-school students,” she said. Nor were there any significant differences between right-wing extremists’ letters and those of the educated mainstream, Schwarz-Friesel said: “The difference is only in the style and the rhetoric, but the ideas are the same.”

To be clear, these letters weren’t just criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians; we’re talking about classic anti-Semitism–as evident from the samples Haaretz cited:

“It is possible that the murder of innocent children suits your long tradition?” one letter said.

“For the last 2,000 years, you’ve been stealing land and committing genocide,” said another.

“You Israelis … shoot cluster bombs over populated areas and accuse people who criticize such actions of anti-Semitism. That’s typical of the Jews!”

I don't always agree with Israeli policy, and I definitely have questions about the advisability of continued expansion of west-bank settlements. But to write things like those quoted above, or to blame Israel for "apartheid" when it is a far more open and democratic society than its Arab neighbours is incomprehensible.